It is now early summer and many young men have joined gyms trying to get big and muscular for the beach season. As someone who has spent many years in gyms and health clubs I have seen this year in and year out. Guys join a gym and want to lose weight and build muscle, all in a matter of a month or two. However, most of them are beginners and no idea how to correctly build size and strength or how long it takes.

They see a gym filled with machines, cables, dumbbells, barbells, flat benches, incline benches, decline benches, squat racks, power racks, and maybe a Smith Machine. So much stuff that they don't know where to start. They may ask for help or advice or maybe someone who works at the gym will help them out. Sometimes they will take advice or sometimes they will try and imitate what they have read in the latest bodybuilding magazine. Instead of beginning with a routine of basic, essential exercises to build a foundation that will make them bigger and stronger they use a routine consisting of cable crossovers, concentration curls, lateral raises, etc. These supplemental exercises, while maybe beneficial to the advanced bodybuilder, will do nothing to increase strength or build size in the beginner.

Muscles grow bigger and stronger when they are forced to do difficult tasks such as doing 10 reps this week when you were only able to do 8 last week. Using light weights to get a "pump" is only a temporary condition that makes you look big, getting pumped has nothing to do with getting stronger.

The only way muscles will get bigger and stronger is when you force them to grow by working them hard on basic movements, you do not need a lot of sets and reps. You need to work extremely hard during your workout but this does not mean working out longer, doing more exercises with lots of reps. All it means is that you do 1 or 2 good, hard sets of basic movements using the most weight you are capable of handling.

What are the basic exercises that you should be using? Here are 8 exercises, that performed 3 times a week, will help the beginner weight trainer gain size and strength. These exercise are: parallel squat, dead lift, bench press, bent-over row, military press, barbell curl, close-grip bench press, bent-legged sit-up. The beginner should start with 1 set of 12 reps on the squat and dead lift, 1 set of 6 reps on the bench press, bent row, military press, curl, and close-grip bench, and 20 reps on the sit-up. For the first 2 weeks add 1 rep to each exercise on each day trained. During the third week add 10 pounds to your squat and dead lift and 5 pounds to your upper body exercises. At the same time lower your reps to where they were when you started. You then begin the cycle all over again, progressively adding weight and reps. You then ensure that your muscles are being adequately stressed. When you have reached the point where you have added 50 pounds to your squat and dead lift you can switch to a twice a week program where for example you will do squats, bench presses, bent rows, and crunches on Tuesday and dead lifts, military presses, curls, close-grip bench presses, and sit-ups on Friday.

The parallel squat and dead lift also provide indirect effect for your entire body. The squat not only works your legs but you arms, shoulders, chest, back, heart and lungs are also being worked. The same with the dead lift, not only is your lower back and legs being worked, but also your upper back, arms, and again, heart and lungs. The bench press will work not only your chest but shoulders and arms as well. Any routine that you use, whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced, should always incorporate these three exercises.